Letters to the editor

Longhorn not a killer

I read with interest your article �Windows Server to get orchestration features�. Frankly, the notion that Longhorn will�kill� middleware is ridiculous. Longhorn is just one more way that Microsoft is tightly integrating its software, forcing customers to upgrade multiple products in order to make one new Microsoft product work.

I would argue that the Microsoft approach only creates barriers - not an open path - to integration and interoperability, because that requires truly open middleware. It cannot be achieved by promoting vendor lock-in, which only defeats the purpose of open standards. And what about the millions of dollars that companies have invested in legacy software? Throw it away and replace with our cool proprietary stuff, says Redmond, and don�t think about the huge cost and pain of migrating to Microsoft.

Longhorn will not be available for a long, long time - at least 2006 � so customers should be skeptical as Microsoft hypes its �middleware killer� and an all-in-one solution for Web services and beyond. Why would anycompany willingly put its mission-critical processes onto a 40GB operating system that has a history of security problems? Why would you?

Bob Cancilla
Managing director and founder
Ignite/400
Long Beach, Calif.

Response to LCS review

I disagree with some statements in your review of Live Communications Server 2003 (LCS). You say: "Because LCS relies on Active Directory to hold its objects, it scales just as Active Directory does. As your LCS user base grows, you can install LCS services on multiple servers that all share the same user information."

LCS doesn�t store everything in AD. We only store global settings in the global setting container, which you can find in \system\microsoft\RTC Services in the domain partition of the forest root. An LCS will read those settings and actually store them in the WMI for that server. Furthermore, as you install more LCSs, they do not share all the same user information. Users that are homed on one server cannot logon to another server and get their data. True, each server knows about every user in the forest that has been enabled for LCS and which home server that user is assigned to; it will not retrieve the data for that user, it will simply redirect the user to the correct home server. Your statement could be misleading in that customers may think you can cluster a number of LCSs together to provide some level of redundancy, which is not true for this version of the product.

Next, you state: "We were disappointed our Windows Messenger clients had to be a member of the domain in which LCS is running. We tried but could not get Windows Messenger to authenticate to LCS unless the client was a domain member and not simply authenticated to the domain."

This should have worked; you can sign-in to LCS from any client that is in any domain and even in a workgroup. LCS uses Kerberos by default out of the box, and if your machine is not part of the domain or in a workgroup, then Kerberos will fail. If you change the authentication to NTLM in LCS, you would have been able to sign-in.

Next, you say: "Another drawback is that you cannot give an LCS account to someone who cannot authenticate to your Active Directory forest."

I don�t see this as a drawback. We take advantage of existing technologies, specifically AD, which has an existing user account database that we can authenticate users with. Why would anyone want to manage two separate databases for user accounts?

Finally, you say: "LCS stores all contact information and user settings in a centralized database within Active Directory, which lets users roam between clients and devices, and have their settings follow them..."

Again, LCS does not store user data such as contacts, groups and Allow/Block list data in AD. The server stores it in MSDE that is running on the server.

Jeff Bryant
LCS support professional
Microsoft
Redmond, Wash.

Editor�s reply: During our tests, we were explicitly told by Microsoft not to use NTLM authentication; in fact, the option was grayed out, and we were told by an engineer that we needed to be a member of the domain to log on, which was evidence enough for our statement.

Charging for e-mail

Regarding Mark Gibbs� �Backspin� column �The charge is in the e-mail�: Plainly, what Bill Gates is doing is opening the door to the �elite� mail service concept - if paid for, preferably heavily, it must be OK. So we need the equivalent of the overnight package - would I throw a Fedex overnight package away?

Obviously not, so I will pay attention to the �overnight� full price emails ahead of the bulk rates.

For my money, I think an e-mail system that asks for reaffirmation of the e-mail from the sender to accomplish the send is just as good, if not better, than all the pricing �stuff� that Gates is advocating. I agree that billing will be a nightmare. Look at the PSTN. Ask the Telco how much that billing system costs them.

On another note in this same symphony, I would suggest that Gates� operating systems and applications might be the better area for his attentions, unless he is promoting (unlikely, but possible, given his history) a little more hegemony.

James P. Albert
Managing partner, telecommunications practice
Schneider Management Associates
Darien, Conn.

In the past I worked for several years at a direct mail marketing firm. I can tell you from experience that charging for e-mail will never be the answer. How much junk postal mail do you get each day or each week? While it somehow doesn�t seem as obtrusive, I can tell you that direct mail users think of 1% to 1.5% response rate as successful marketing. The industry success rate being so low indicates to me that junk e-mail (at it�s currently much higher response rates, and much lower costs) will be around for some time. Charging for e-mail, as nightmarish as it would be to manage, would still have little to no affect on the practice itself.

As for solving the spam problem for most users, a combination of readily available and popular software solves 99% of the problems. Simply using Outlook 2003, I�ve been able to eliminate 95%+ of spam that comes to me. I typically receive 200 to 300 e-mails each day, with 1-5 spam messages per day using Outlook�s least blocking automatic filter and a few weeks of assigning people to my blocked senders list. My e-mail address is visible on numerous sites totaling an average of 5,000 � 20,000 hits per day and that�s all the spam I deal with (1-5 messages per day). That�s not too much of a headache to me and I don�t think it would be to others. In my humble opinion, the whole spam debate is being blown way out of proportion to propagate the fear, uncertainty and doubt of individuals to purchase meaningless and ineffectual spam-blocking software. Common sense and basic integrated tools go a long way to stopping this problem.

As for slamming Bill Gates for his ideas on charging spammers. C�mon, let�s cut the guy a break. He�s trying to make peace in a world that thinks he�s out to get them. He�s doing his political best to appease his constituency from a problem that has been over-hyped.

Brian Tinkler
Director of business development
Centare Group
Brookfield, Wis.

The charge-to-send model does offer the advantage of cutting spam potentially closer to the origin, or at the least pushing accountability back in that direction. I for one am also not interested in my hypothetical great uncle Fred in Peoria (who presumably wouldn�t know the Internet from a fishing net) nor am I terribly concerned with anonymity in message traffic. I�m one of those people who assumes that what you put in writing should be suitable for public dissemination by your worst adversaries, which causes you to get really tactful in your written messages. And, if some socially desperate individual will derive some vicarious pleasure in sniffing my e-mail residues, well, they have my pity to boot. My digital existence is just not that interesting, even to me. Conspiracy theorists of the world, be bored: you�re welcome to it, although I would respectfully suggest your efforts would yield more fruit in another orchard.

Any system that relies on any level of technology and policy compliance seems to me to be ultimately doomed to failure. Spammers in general have illustrated a collective propensity to circumvent any such approaches with both reckless abandon and astonishing proficiency. Money talks, promises walk.

Charge-to-send would undoubtedly cause short-term havoc. It would undoubtedly initiate a significant amount of wasteful litigous activity. It would undoubtedly be most disruptive to legitimate message traffic, be a nightmare to administer, and I can think of a lengthy list of other fallouts that would occur. But, it would in the longer term force some level of restraint on a community of users that has repeatedly demonstrated that nothing else will work. Money talks.

The so-called �curse of the commons� is well documented in just about any shared resource scenario one would choose to consider, indeed going all the way back to its agricultural roots. One cannot have their cake and eat it too, and charge-to-send merely imposes a nominal cost per slice that many individuals, including myself, would dearly prefer to the present drowning in a glut of unwanted message traffic.

In closing, dear columninst, this gentle reader would gladly have paid a nominal charge to send you this message, but for now, especially since it�s free, it�s time to retreat to studying all the great deals for mechandise that is un-needed, body parts and functions that do not require enhancement, and the joys of living debt-free in a refinanced house. Now, if I can just get those nice fellows from Nigeria with the hundred and twenty million dollars to contact me again�

George Nezlek
Assistant professor, information systems
Loyola University
Chicago

It�s not magic

Regarding �Do you believe in Magic Quadrants?�: Gartner's Magic Quadrant is a brilliant technique for representing multi-dimensional products, companies or market on a two-dimensional surface. The quadrant is not magic, pure science, definitive or an answer; it is one company's perspective and a tool. IT professionals and business decision-makers should have many tools in their toolbox. When researching or evaluating a product, service or market, we should always seek multiple opinions covering our particular requirements. You may not need or be able to afford the complete offering of the market leader; here the niche player may provide your solution.

No individual quadrant is better or worse than the other, and from that perspective, Gartner's Magic Quadrant is a valuable tool. You still have to evaluate the products, and the process should include a postmortem analysis comparing the analyst�s opinion to that of your own. Information is only as good as the source; you select the sources you trust to keep you up to date with reliable news and information. The postmortem analysis will help determine how often you pull that tool from your toolbox.

Andrew Kiolbasa
Chief operating officer
312, Inc.
Orlando, Fla.

Make it affordable

Regarding �Copan spins disks on demand�: Why would anyone pay 75 cents to $3.50 per gigabyte when you can buy Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) hard drives now for 88 cents per gigabyte? It seems as though by removing the "extra" technology, vendors should be able to get the price down much further. I've been backing up to a hard drive for years, and I've never had a problem restoring like when I used dynamic address translation. And it is much faster to restore. Many backup software vendors are now adding hard drive backup features. I just hope Copan and other vendors get pricing in the range that small to mid-sized companies can afford.

Garrett Johnson
MIS manager
Annalee Mobilitee Dolls
Meredith, N.H.

Most have ethics

I take exception to your article regarding MCI ethics training ("Doing the right thing, MCI style"). I would just like to make the point that the lack of ethics demonstrated by MCI leadership was not and is not representative of the ethics of the rank-and-file MCI employee. Ethics training will be good for everyone, but it should be noted that folks in the field with whom I have worked over the years, deploying computers for IT support, were doing their job diligently and responsibly. I really do believe that this difference needs to be made clear.

Terry Weathers
Colorado Springs, Colo.

Collateral damage

Joel Snyder�s column �Time to wise up about worms� is the best article I have ever seen on viruses, anytime, anywhere, by anyone. My small business is continually affected by "bounce messages" to e-mails we didn't send, "you have a virus" notifications from IT administrators who don�t understand that the return addresses on infected e-mails are usually forged... these virus writers have cost me a small fortune. Bottom line is: It only takes one naive user to put my business address in his/her address book and make my whole life miserable. If someone drove a car without license or knowing how to drive and ran over my leg, wouldn't that person be responsible for damage to me?

Perhaps some personal liability, as in monetary damages, might convince people that if you don't know how to use that computer, you'd best leave it alone.

Patricia Collins
President
American Medical Employment Network
Gulf Breeze, Fla.

Letters to the editor

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